Asus Zephyrus G14 Hands-On Review

ROG’s creators continue to redefine possibilities in the ultra slim gaming category. The latest example came at CES 2020 with the introduction of the new Zephyrus G14, which includes a powerful processor in a compact chassis and is portable enough to take it anywhere, at a price that aims to bring the gaming world to a wider audience.

Having made the ROG Swift 360Hz monitor known to the world, Asus took advantage of CES 2020 to introduce the latest member of the Zephyrus family. Underneath the lightweight and compact design of the 14-inch, 17.9mm-thick ROG Zephyrus G14, it hides the latest AMD Ryzen mobile processor from the 4000 series, promising high performance for gaming and streaming for demanding tasks like video editing and 3D authoring.

Under the hood, the ROG Zephyrus G14 also features an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 GPU, up to 32 GB dual-channel DDR4-3200 RAM and up to 1 TB of NVMe SSD.

The ROG Zephyrus G14 also allows users to choose between two different screen types according to their needs: on the one hand a 120Hz Full HD monitor or a display with a higher WQHD resolution, both of which have color validation, PANTONE.

When it comes to its exterior design, users can choose to customize the laptop cover with an AniMe Matrix panel, which features over 1,215 mini LEDs. According to Asus, you can import GIFs and graphics of your choice to create animations and even type text messages with different fonts.

The durable battery supports over 10 hours of intensive use and includes the ability to charge via Type-C compliant power supplies, making the G14 a very responsive notebook. The Moonlight White or Eclipse Gray styling has a clean, professional design, highlighting its versatile mode, packed with premium features that enhance everyday use.

The optional AniMe Matrix ™ panel enhances personalization by allowing users to set graphics, animations and other individualized effects on over 1,000 mini LEDs built into the laptop cover.

The Zephyrus G14 includes a GeForce RTX 2060 amplified by ROG Boost from 0 to 1298MHz at 65W. The dedicated GPU is underpinned by the latest NVIDIA Turing architecture, which combines cores dedicated to programmable shading, real-time ray tracing and artificial intelligence.

This combination enables enhanced lighting, shadows and other game effects, and offers a diverse range of computing resources to accelerate demanding workloads such as content creation, 3D modeling and deep learning systems.

The Turing video encoder is largely responsible for the G14’s ability to play and stream simultaneously. Specialized hardware enables higher stream quality with minimal performance impact and is compatible with Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), a popular capture tool among expanding creators and aspiring streamers in Twitch.

Lastly the ultra-thin chassis leaves little room for airflow, and a smaller footprint makes the G14 even harder to cool off. ROG thermal engineers have developed a unique feature that dynamically adjusts available power to the CPU based on GPU temperatures. You can make changes every second to respond to spikes in GPU usage, ensuring optimal gaming performance. You can make sure this machine will run faster than a horse in the Kentucky Derby race.

This is the first ROG notebook to feature an ErgoLift hinge that tilts the keyboard at a more comfortable angle. The bottom of the screen lifts the rear of the machine when the lid is open, giving the base ventilation openings more breathing room. The design also hides part of the bottom panel but doing so, may prevent airflow through the rear doors.

To compensate, the ventilation openings were cut in the panel and the distance from the heat sinks at the rear was widened. As this clearance increases the depth of the chassis and makes the hinge more susceptible to pressure, a stiffer spring has been placed to increase strength.